Take advantage of fresh peaches while they are in season. This Old Fashioned Peach Ice Cream captures the perfect peach flavor.
This is a creamy, rich-tasting ice cream with bits of peaches throughout.
Homemade Peach Ice Cream
I've tweaked and tested this recipe over the years to get just the right creamy texture and peachy flavor. Every scoop tastes like a bite of ripe summer peaches. It's a simple recipe that lets the peaches do all the talking, with just a bit of vanilla to bring it all together.
When I was a kid, we always made homemade ice cream. It wasn’t until I had kids of my own and a kitchen full of fresh peaches from our local orchards that I decided to try making peach ice cream. I wanted something that felt like summer in a bowl. This recipe brings together that old-fashioned homemade process with the sweet, bright flavor of ripe peaches.
This peach ice cream captures the warmth of summer with plenty of peach flavor.
Peach Ice Cream Ingredients
- Peaches - Use the very best peaches you can find. I prefer to use yellow freestone peaches. The pit in a freestone peach easily comes out and doesn’t stick to the fruit. When fresh peaches are not in season, you can use frozen peaches. Select chopped frozen peaches and don’t thaw before using.
- Sugar - Granulated sugar is used in this recipe.
- Heavy Cream - Sometimes called whipping cream. Look for a cream that has between 30-36% milk fat
- Egg Yolks - Just the yolks are used in this recipe. The yolks help form the custard that makes this recipe rich and creamy.
- Vanilla - Use real vanilla, not imitation vanilla.
Fresh peaches
I have played around with making perfect peach ice cream for a while, and I've finally nailed it. The secret is all in the fruit and extracting as much peach flavor from the peaches as possible.
My method is to peel and cut up all the peaches into small cubes. Then put them into a bowl with a bit of sugar and let them sit and macerate. The sugar helped release a lot of the juices from the peaches. This peach liquid is added to the custard mixture, which brings a beautiful peach flavor.
Once the peaches have released a lot of their juices, I pop them into a food processor and pulse just 3-4 times. This is just enough to break down the peaches a bit more, but still leaves a few pieces.
Just look at all that liquid! That's liquid gold! It's nothing but the juices from fresh peaches and a bit of sugar. So much yummy flavor and all that liquid, and the peaches go into the ice cream.
Frozen peaches
For years, I have only made this with fresh peaches, and they really do make the best peach ice cream. If you have fresh peaches available, use them. However, there are times of the year when fresh peaches aren't available, and you just have to have some peach ice cream. I have discovered that you can use frozen peaches. Make certain you buy unsweetened peaches. You just want the peaches and not any sweeteners or anything else added.
Allow the peaches to thaw and cut them up into small cubes. Add the sugar and let the peaches rest for a few hours. I find you don't extract as much juice from the peaches as you do when you use fresh, but it still works. Now we can have peach ice cream all year long!
Ice cream maker
I used an electric automatic ice cream maker to churn this ice cream. Any type of ice cream maker will work fine, just make certain your bowl will hold 1 ½ quarts of churned ice cream. Feel free to use a hand-churned maker too!
How to Make Peach Ice Cream
This delicious homemade ice cream starts by making a custard. This isn't difficult, but you do need to follow a few steps so your custard turns out. The entire recipe with ingredients is listed at the bottom of this post.
- Heat cream, milk, sugar, and salt over medium heat
- In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks until they are smooth and lightened in color. This can be done with a wire whisk or an electric beater
3. Once cream mixture is hot, but not boiling. Turn off heat and remove ½ cup of liquid.
4. Slowly pour hot cream mixture into egg yolks while whisking. This helps temper the egg yolks so they don't cook or curdle when adding to the hot cream mixture
5. Add egg mixture into pot with the remaining cream. Pour in slowly while whisking
6. Turn heat back on to medium heat until mixture begins to thicken and mixture reaches 185 degrees
7. Remove from heat and pour through a fine strainer to remove any bits from the egg
8. Add peaches and juices
9. Cover and refrigerate until fully chilled, at least 4 hours
Peach Ice Cream Recipe Tips
- Use the best fresh peaches you can find, or if not available, use frozen peaches
- Make certain your custard is fully chilled (at least 4 hours) before churning
- Your churning bowl should be completely frozen before churning (at least 12 hours)
- Harden ice cream in freezer after churning for at least 2 hours
- If ice cream becomes too hard, just let set at room temperature for 10 minutes before scooping
- Not sure how to separate eggs? Check out this post on how to separate eggs!
Storing Homemade Peach Ice Cream
To store homemade ice cream, place it in an airtight container to prevent ice crystals from forming and maintain its creamy texture. Store the container in the coldest part of your freezer, typically the back, to avoid temperature fluctuations. Homemade ice cream is best eaten within a month. The ice cream will last longer, but you may see some slight changes in quality.
Homemade ice cream tends to become harder in the freezer than store-bought varieties. To make it easier to serve, remove it from the freezer for 5-10 minutes before scooping.
Peaches and Cream Ice Cream FAQs
Ice cream is churned for two main reasons. The first is to help incorporate air into the mixture, which helps make a light texture. The second is to stop large ice crystals from forming. The churning keeps everything moving and helps create the smooth texture.
The ice cream maker will churn and freeze the ice cream for you. However, it will still be very soft.
Once the churning has stopped, remove your ice cream from the bowl and place in a freezer-safe container. Immediately place in the freezer for at least 2 hours. If you have a deep freeze (0 degrees or lower) place your ice cream there. Otherwise, plan on additional time for your ice cream to harden.
More delicious frozen treats
More recipes using peaches
If you make this recipe, I’d love to hear about it! Leave a comment below and snap a picture and tag me on Instagram @beyondthechickencoop
Please check out all my delicious desserts!
Old Fashioned Peach Ice Cream
Equipment
- Measuring Cups
- Measuring Spoons
Ingredients
Peaches
- 3 medium sized fresh peaches (peeled, pitted and chopped - approximately 2 cups)
- ¼ cup sugar
Custard
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- ¾ cups sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Peaches
- Place chopped peaches in a bowl. Add ¼ cup sugar and stir. Cove and let sit for at least 1 hour.
- Once peaches have released a lot of juice, place peaches and juice in a food processor. Pulse 3-4 times just until peaches are broken up into small pieces.
Custard
- In a saucepan, heat heavy cream, milk and ¾ cup sugar and salt. Warm over medium heat, stirring often until the sugar has dissolved, 3 to 4 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks with a wire whisk or an electric mixer. Egg yolks should become smooth and lighter in color (see pictures in post)
- Take ½ cup of heated cream mixture and pour slowly into egg yolks. Whisk steadily while pouring in mixture.
- Pour egg mixture back into remaining cream mixture. Reheat over medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes stirring often. You do not want this mixture to boil. Mixture will begin to thicken just slightly. You want it to be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. An instant read thermometer should read 175-185 F.
- Place a fine strainer over the top of a bowl. Pour custard mixture into strainer to strain off any small bits of egg or lumps.
- Stir in vanilla and peaches with juices
- Cover and refrigerate until completely cooled, at least 4 hours or overnight.
- Place custard into an automatic ice cream maker and churn for 20-25 minutes
- Remove ice cream and place in freezer for 2 hours before serving.
Notes
- Use the best fresh peaches you can find, or if not available, use frozen peaches
- Make certain your custard is fully chilled (at least 4 hours) before churning
- Your churning bowl should be completely frozen before churning (at least 12 hours)
- Harden ice cream in freezer after churning for at least 2 hours
- If ice cream becomes too hard, just let set at room temperature for 10 minutes before scooping
Nutritional Disclaimer:
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and should only be construed as an estimate rather than a guarantee. To obtain the most precise nutritional information in a provided recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the exact ingredients you are using when preparing the recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Nutrition
This recipe was originally posted in July 2016. Over the years, I have made some slight adjustments to the recipe. I have updated the recipe and instructions to show these changes.
Dani says
Very, very good! I cut the sugar in the peaches and the in the custard, just trying to reduce the amount of sugar that we consume. I mashed the peaches a little bit with a fork bc I wanted bigger pieces of peaches and I didn't want to clean the food processor (HA!). Luckily, I have 3 peaches left to make another batch!
Kathy says
Wonderful! So glad you enjoyed the ice cream! 🙂
Kathleen says
Well peach season is over (sniff!) so I’m using your fabulous Custard base as the base for espresso ice cream. Cutting the sugar down to 2/3 and adding four shots of espresso to the custard. I’ve made this before and it’s wonderful. Bringing it to a pizza making party tonight as the perfect dessert.
Thank you so much.
Kathy says
What a great idea! I need to give that a try!
Maggie Dunlap says
OMG. It's been ages since I made ice cream, but this turned out EXCELLENT! I used all ingredients as listed w/a few notes below. I opted to make two batches. I macerated all the peaches in one bowl. Feeling a tad clueless, I may have pulsed them a bit much in the processer but all OK. I made the custard mix in two separate batches. I used 1 tsp.. of a Madagascar vanilla bean paste in each batch. When splitting the peaches in half, I got just over 1 1/2 cups for each batch but again, they were finely chopped. Being cautious w/the amount of vanilla allowed for the peach taste to truly stand out. So happy I found this recipe. Several are already asking me for a container!
Kathy says
Hi Maggie,
Thanks so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed the ice cream. You're going to be quite popular if you're giving it away!!! 😉 I appreciate you sharing your tips. Thank you,
Kathy 🙂
Wanda says
Will date and review once I make it!
Kathy says
Okay...so why the four stars now?
Rosalyn says
This is the best ice cream!!!
Kathy says
Thanks so much! 🙂 I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
Bobbie says
Hi Kathy…….I’m looking forward to putting this recipe together but we do not have an ice cream churner/machine! Any ideas or suggestions? Would placing all (after the 2 hours freezing) ingredients in the large mixer and whipping for a length of time suffice for no electric I’ve cream maker? Thanks so much!
Kathy says
Hi Bobbie,
I think you have the right idea! I did a quick search and found this article as an option. It's similar to what you're thinking! Let me know how it turns out.
Kathy
Michael G McCoy says
This recipe was really very good, and this review is not intended to be negative at all.
The end result almost identical to Blue Bell (a Texas fan fav ice cream co.) Peaches and Homemade Vanilla (my personal favorite). However, it was a bit too creamy I think (as is Blue Bell, a matter of personal preference). Next time I will try a non-custard recipe, perhaps omit the eggs (so no cooking) and at least half of the heavy cream and replace that with whole milk from the dairy (about 8%). The taste was phenomenal though. We used ripe, yellow Sumer Fire peaches and followed the macerating process to the letter). That part of the recipe is a real keeper in my book and can cross to any peach recipe. The custard part of the recipe was a lot of work (it would be easier after the first time I think) for the resultant reward, which was as good as buying Blue Bell (which is a whole lot easier and probably cheaper too). I'll give this a 4.5 stars for being as good as a high end commercial product, but I think I will tweak the cream down a little to make it better for me. Omitting the egg custard in lieu of a no cook recipe might be a mistake, but that's how we learn. To be fair, I was specifically looking for a custard recipe for my first attempt at hand cranked ice cream. I wanted a top end result to compare my tweaks to and this was an exceptional place to begin my explorations. Congratulations for setting a high bar for me to compare future experiments to.
Kathy says
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your review. Glad you loved the taste. Hope you find the exact creaminess you're looking for. 🙂
Kathleen says
You might want to think about using half-and-half instead of heavy whipping cream. It’s the amount of fat I think that you are not enjoying. That said, I don’t know how anything could be too creamy! Lol.
Kathy says
Thanks for the tip! Half and half will work well but I’m like you and like it extra creamy! ☺️
Shannondoah Deaver says
Used fresh freestone peaches and followed recipe. Electric churn. EXCELLENT.
Kathy says
Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Chris says
Loved this recipe. Not at all complicated. Delicious. I used half and half instead of the milk because I had some on hand. I was almost through with the custard and realized I had no vanilla. I used a 1/4 cup of rum instead. I'd read adding some kind of alcohol to ice cream recipes. helps to prevent ice crystals.
Kathy says
I'll bet the rum added great flavor too! Great idea!!!